Thursday, June 14, 2007

Animation shows waters rising behind huge dam

China's Three Gorges have filled, following the construction of a new dam, and a spiffy animation of NASA satellite images has tracked the changes.

The mashup is a compilation of NASA Landsat satellite images that take the viewer on a virtual flyover of the region as it looked in 1987 and in 2006. It's amazing to see not only how much water has backed up behind the dam, but how much the once-green hillsides on either side were scoured in its construction.

When I last visited China, I passed on seeing the Three Gorges for a hike along the relatively unspoiled "Tiger Leaping Gorge" further up the Yangtze. Now it seems this gorge will meet the same fate in a new dam that will store even more water than the Three Gorges.